When to Use Intel® QuickAssist Technology

Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT) is a powerful hardware acceleration technology designed to enhance cryptographic and compression workloads. In this comprehensive paper, we’ll delve into the intricacies of Intel® QAT, explore its use cases, and understand when it’s most beneficial.

Introduction to Intel QuickAssist Technology

Intel® QAT has been in the market for over a decade and has found adoption across various domains, including cloud computing, networking, storage, and big data applications. Let’s start by understanding its core features:

  • Cryptographic Cipher & Hash Acceleration: Intel® QAT significantly speeds up cryptographic operations, making it ideal for secure communication protocols like SSL/TLS2.

  • Public Key Cryptography Acceleration: Asymmetric encryption and decryption tasks are efficiently handled by Intel® QAT, improving performance in scenarios like secure key exchange.

  • Compression/Decompression Acceleration: Intel® QAT provides hardware-based lossless compression and decompression, reducing CPU load and enhancing data transfer rates.